With brands like Dow Jones, the New York Post, and Realtor.com under its umbrella, News Corp is a truly global media conglomerate. However, a global business means a global workforce of 25,000 diverse and dispersed employees with differing personal and professional needs. With a growing number of employees in their family-building years, News Corp knows it needs benefits and solutions to address the unique challenges of working caregivers. We spoke to Kim Duck, Vice President of Global Benefits at News Corp, to understand how her organization takes special care of its caregivers.
Why is it important for News Corp to offer caregiver benefits and what is your general approach to employee support?
Caregivers are hugely important to the work we do at News Corp, and we want them to feel welcomed and supported every day. When you look at our demographics, one-third of our employee population consists of families with children. Additionally, our average employee age has dropped from the mid-forties to low forties over the last few years, meaning our workforce is getting younger, quickly. If we want to attract younger employees, we need benefits and support systems that meet their needs. Our caregiver offerings are part of a modern and holistic employee benefits proposition.
What are some of the specific ways News Corp is supporting employees with caregiving responsibilities?
A large portion of our workforce is based in the New York metro area, but we have employees around the country. That means we need solutions that work for everyone, regardless of location. Our most impactful and widely used caregiving benefit is back-up care. This is a benefit employees can use for scheduled or unexpected gaps in their usual caregiver coverage. We offer 20 days of back-up care per year, per employee, and an additional 20 days for return-to-work infant transition for new parents. Not only does it give our caregivers peace of mind that their loved ones are being looked after, but it also saves them and our organization from missed workdays.
Our back-up care program also helps support employees at all stages of life, providing summer camp care for families with school-age children, as well as options for those caring for an aging parent or spouse. Our back-up care program helps create benefits equity and connects people to the care their family needs.
How have these programs been received by your workforce?
Our family care solutions exceed our expectations every single year. Registration and use are continuously on the rise, well past our projections. Last year alone, we saved 1785 collective workdays, and usage is steadily increasing year-over-year. This year, back-up care use is up 59.4% since January 1, so it’s only growing in popularity. There’s also the intangible aspect of these benefits. I think people in general used to be hesitant about disclosing their caregiving responsibilities, but now feel extremely comfortable doing so because our company is clearly supporting it.
Working parents with children in school face unique challenges. What are some of the ways News Corp helps these families?
One of the biggest needs for parents with older children is help navigating high school academics and the college process. To help student dependents, we offer in-person and virtual tutoring for all child and adult learners. In fact, a significant portion of our back-up care usage is for tutoring. In addition, we offer College Coach through Bright Horizons, which pairs students and their families with a college admissions expert for 1:1 guidance. It’s a phenomenal way to ease the burden for parents already stressed about their child's college process and has proven incredibly popular among our workforce. I’ve used the program myself and can vouch strongly for it. From a financial standpoint, we’ve rolled out loan repayment through 401 (k) – which is also applicable to adult borrowers. If you can show you are paying a student loan either for your child or yourself, you get a 401 (k) match.
With such a large and dispersed population, how do you communicate your benefits to all News Corp employees to ensure everyone knows what is available to them?
I’m a benefits person who embraces marketing, not the other way around. Communicating our benefit offerings is essential because I want everyone to take advantage of what we have. Our benefits are designed for the moments that matter to our employees, and we use clear communication and technology to drive the optimal benefits experience. Because our workforce is trending younger, we want to communicate using the tools they’re comfortable with. As such, we prefer electronic media, specifically Instagram, for marketing to employees. But we also offer printed materials which are very successful as well. Probably our most impactful form of communication is our email newsletter, which keeps them updated on new benefits and timely offerings. The newsletter has a 60% open rate, which shows us people want this information and we’re reaching them where they are.
Thank you so much to Kim for taking the time to speak with us!
